


when you're waiting for that moment

by la_dissonance



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Friendship, Gen, Kissing, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_dissonance/pseuds/la_dissonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max's priorities don't stop him from being a <em>person</em>, though, and he still gets lonely from time to time.</p>
<p>Or, the one where Max isn't into dating for Reasons but still craves physical affection sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you're waiting for that moment

**Author's Note:**

> A warm-up for BFF Fest, I guess? Many many thanks to TheWrongKindOfPC for looking this over. Title is from 504 Plan's Kissing Old Friends (I had no choice).

Max hasn't really gotten around to dating yet. He's aware that some people — okay, lots of people — figured out dating in high school and he's way behind the curve on this one, but it doesn't really bother him. He's not even sure he'd want to date the same way all the kids in his high school did, not exactly. Sooner or later he's sure he'll get around to it, but it's really not a priority right now. 

His priorities don't stop him from being a _person_ , though, and he still gets lonely from time to time. One time he told Sean that, and Sean wrote him the most achingly beautiful song in what Max is pretty sure was one sitting, then came over at seven o'clock in the morning and played it for Max on his acoustic guitar before promptly guzzling an entire pot of coffee. The song has little to nothing to do with the kind of mundane loneliness Max was complaining about, but Sean always says he takes things too literally, so who knows. He's still got the version where they added pianos (well into Sean's second pot of coffee) kicking around somewhere, and he still listens to it sometimes when he's feeling particularly maudlin. It's comforting. There's one Sean wrote for Tom on that disk too, and one that Sean never explained but asked Max to record anyway, and Max thinks that the most comforting thing about them is that Sean exists, is out there in the world caring as hard as he does. 

Right now though, after they've all been fooling around in the studio for hours, Max doesn't feel song-lonely, he feels people-lonely. He'll see Tom and Sean and Al and Ryan all again tomorrow, because they practice basically every day, but that doesn't change the fact that they're all going to go home pretty soon. Even Tom, now that he's officially moved in with Sean and done living in Danielle's room in between tours like a hobo. 

Max follows everyone out to their cars after they call it quits for the day — half the time, he's too busy on his computer to barely notice them go, but today their conversation pulled at him like a magnet. Ryan makes a lot of noise about wanting Sean to come out drinking with him and Nick Scimeca, and that leads to them all giving Ryan shit for going drinking at four in the afternoon, which in turn leads to the even better game that is giving Ryan shit for needing two hours to get ready. ("What do you want me to do while I'm waiting?" Sean had asked. "Build a piano? Write a thesis? Have any minor household repairs I could take care of for you?")

And somehow that leads to Tom herding Sean and Max away from Ryan's pernicious influence and into his car, where they let inertia carry them to the diner for a supper that's so early it might as well be lunch ("Ryan never has to know," Tom says, pulling into the parking lot, and Max adds, "As long as we're not getting _wasted_ ," and then they all lose it). After the diner the most logical thing is piss-poor beer from the liquor store under Tom and Sean's apartment and movies on Tom and Sean's piss-poor couch, and that's Max's evening taken care of. 

The couch is technically big enough for four people, but there's enough pillows and blankets piled haphazardly on the arms that three is usually a squeeze. Max wedges himself between Sean and the nearest pile of pillows, sticking his feet onto Sean's lap during the ads that the DVD won't let them skip through because Sean always gives the best foot rubs. 

Max doesn't even remember he's lonely until Sean gets up after the first movie and announces he's calling it an early night, and then it comes crashing down like a giant wave. 

Tom gets up and rummages through the pile of DVDs underneath the TV while the credits roll. "Die Hard II or Terminator?" 

"Terminator." Max curls his legs up under him and moves into Sean's vacated spot, even though occupying the middle of the couch when there's only two people is kind of a dick move. Tom never cuddles unless there are extenuating circumstances, though, and Max would kind of like to be cuddled right now. 

Well. Not cuddled like a kid; what Max is really in the mood for is for Tom to put his arm around Max's shoulders and pull him close and tuck a lock of hair behind his ear and whisper something nice in his ear, like they were on a date. Not that Max wants to be dating Tom, or even be on _one_ date with him, but because this is the kind of situation where he always imagined that kind of stuff happening to him and he's in a mood. It probably feels nice, all that hand holding and hair-touching stuff, and he bets Tom's good at it. He'll settle for a little forced snuggling, though, if that's what he can get.

The way they're sitting so close together, it would be easy to initiate any number of these things himself, Max thinks, and Tom would never have to know why. He could reach over and put his arm around Tom's shoulders, for example. He could lean in and kiss Tom on the lips, because Tom is _pretty_ and he's probably good at that, too, but Tom would definitely take that the wrong way. Kissing is unambiguously a Dating Thing and Tom's dating someone already — Max's _sister_ , of all people — and it wouldn't be fair. Agreeing to be someone's boyfriend means you sign up to handle all their weird moods and personal shit, but Tom's already someone's boyfriend. Max can't just dump all feelings on Tom right now just because he happens to be convenient; Tom never signed up for that.

Max can totally just ignore all of his own inconvenient feelings until they go away, though. It helps that he's sort of leaning against Tom's arm with his face mashed into Tom's shoulder, and Tom's not actively shrinking away, so Max thinks he can count his super-subtle cuddling stratagem as a resounding success. Now all he has to do is stop thinking about kissing and he'll be fine.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Tom asks. 

"You'd think if the technology was advanced enough to send robots back through time, they could send clothes with them, too."

"Fair." Tom lets it drop for a minute, then pokes Max in the side. "Dude, you're thinking so hard I can practically feel your thoughts through my shoulder, spill."

"I was thinking about kissing you," Max admits, because he's been telling Tom all the embarrassing shit that's been on his mind since he was like twelve, he's pretty much hardwired to just spill at this point. 

"Dude," Tom says, sounding mildly impressed.

"Not, like, because I have _feelings_ for you," Max emphasizes. "I'm not, like, making a move. I just kinda wanted to kiss _someone_ , but it doesn't have anything to do with you, really, so I'll just shut up now. Sorry."

"No, hey, that's totally legit." Tom's arm relaxes fractionally so it's almost like he's leaning into Max while Max is leaning into him, and Max thinks to himself that this is the difference between forcible Tom cuddles and voluntary ones. 

Max sighs. "It's not, though, that's all my crap to deal with."

"What crap? Being in the mood to kiss random people?"

Max shrugs, because yeah, pretty much.

"I get that all the time, dude, I think that's just part of the human condition."

"Yeah, but you — you and Danielle have each other for when that happens, it's not a _problem_."

"Mmm," Tom says. "But it's a problem for you because you don't have anyone and you're just stuck with unspecified urges toward random people, right?"

Max nods miserably and sinks further into the couch. Tom's side seems to get a few fractions even more soft and welcoming, but Max might be imagining it.

"I could be a random person, you know," Tom says after they've been watching the movie in silence for a while.

"What," Max says.

"If you just want to make out with _someone_ ," Tom says, very slowly, "I'm someone. Unless you want to, like, go wake Sean up or flag someone down on the street."

Max hadn't said anything about making out. He hadn't mentioned anything about hair-touching or cuddling either, though, because he's trying to keep his embarrassment here to some kind of minimum.

"Um," Max says. He looks over, and Tom's face is right there, all earnest and open, and fuck, Max really would like to kiss him. "That isn't weird?"

Tom kisses him, closed-mouthed and quick and reassuring, and _oh_. That's just _nice_. It's just friendly, just Tom, only with a bit more touching than Max is used to. Max feels his lips quirking up in a smile.

Tom echoes his smile. "It's a little weird, I guess, but I don't care."

In a way, it's kind of the weirdest — Tom's crooked smile is exactly the sort of thing that would make Max want to kiss him if they were a couple, probably, and this is the same dorky and impossibly cool guy Max has known basically since he was an infant. But none of that matters to Tom, apparently, so Max doesn't need to worry about it right now either.

He kisses Tom back, and _that_ part, the doing without the thinking, is pure comfort. Tom's letting Max set the pace, relaxing back against the corner of the couch so Max has room to lean in and just kiss him slow and curious, warm lips and shitty beer breath and Max's fingers in Tom's hair, when he works up the nerve. He pulls back when his thoughts start clamoring too loud to ignore, and sees Tom watching him through half-lidded eyes. He must have closed his own without thinking about it.

"How much — how much, um, random-person-ness are you up for right now?" Max can feel his face heating up even asking the question, but Tom seems to take it in stride.

"I'm down for anything that involves making out or cuddling, anything below the belt and I'd have to clear it with your sister."

Max makes a sour face. "Yeah, no, that line right there killed any residual desire I might have had to get in your pants."

Tom just smirks a little.

"Asshole," Max says fondly. Tom will evidently always be a smug bastard to whom boundaries are a foreign concept; it's oddly comforting.

"I didn't kill your mood for above-the-waist action too, did I?"

"Maybe let's just hold hands for a while until I can get that image out of my mind, yeah?"

"Cool," Tom says, and lets Max slip his hand into Tom's own without making a fuss. On the screen, Sarah Connor's in the middle of delivering a stern monologue, and it's easy to just slip back into watching the movie, a normal night like any other.

Except that Tom's holding Max's hand, squeezing a little when there's an explosion on screen that startles him. Max is aware, at some level, that Tom is just doing this to make him feel better, but it _is_ making him feel better, so he can't find the will to overthink it. If Tom didn't want to be doing this, he wouldn't. Easy.

Max isn't sure if he's going to kiss Tom again until the movie is over — he doesn't have to sit here vaguely wishing he could kiss someone without being able to, because he knows Tom would let him, and that does the trick. The movie ends, though, and in that moment after the credits have started rolling but before they're fully committed to getting off the couch, Max leans over and presses his lips to Tom's. Tom smiles a little against Max's mouth and opens up when Max experimentally flicks his tongue out to taste Tom's lower lip. The way he's letting Max take the lead feels almost like a dance — Max will fumble forward, curious, and Tom follows a step behind, mirroring, explaining, showing Max what it's like done well. The sum total of Max's kissing experience up to this point is a couple of drunken smooches from Ryan that he did not initiate and does not much care to repeat, and the obligatory front porch kiss with his senior prom date, so Max knows he hasn't got a lot to work with, here, but Tom never makes Max feel deficient. He just makes Max feel _good_ , like there's this whole new space where Max can be affectionate without worrying how it'll come across.

Max breaks away. "We can do this again sometime, right?" He feels too shy to ask for all the time, even though that's kind of what he wants.

"Promise," Tom says, and he must see a little bit of that shyness in Max's face, because he tugs on a lock of Max's hair and stares intensely into Max's eyes. "Anytime, got it? I would rather weirdly make out with you for hours than have you get all sad and pine-y like that again."

Max shifts uncomfortably under Tom's scrutiny. "I wasn't —"

"Whatever you want to call it. You're like a fucking brother to me, of course I care how you're doing."

"I'm doing okay," Max says, because it seems important for Tom to know. "Really great, mostly."

"Well, sue me for wanting to make sure you stay that way." Tom smiles a little sadly.

Max's heart does a weird clenching thing. "Is it weird if I say I love you? Like a brother, not like — you know."

Tom pecks him on the cheek. "Maybe, I dunno. But I love you too, so whatever."

It's the same tone that Tom uses to demand that they keep some guitar part that Max just came up with, or say he doesn't care if Sean takes the last slice of pizza, but he always means it then, so Max thinks that he must mean it now. And that doesn't feel weird at all, no matter how strange it is to talk about out loud. It feels like the way things should be.


End file.
